I have a like-new Porsche OEM battery charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter. $80 shipped to you in the original box.

 

As always great info....thanks!

 

Google C-TEK. That is the charger seen earlier and sold by Porsche. You can find it on line for 60-70$. I use it through the lighter w/o any problem. Gerry

 

Bought the Porsche battery charger (cheaper version) and I have had the charger plugged in for two days and the light remains on stating thathe unit is still charging. How long will the charger take to fully charge. Battery is two and half years old and hasn't been any probllems since new.

 

The time to fully charge is dependent on how low the battery is. I have the Battery Tender and when I brought the car home, for the first time after purchase, it took three days to fully charge the battery. I now have the Battery Tender attached to the battery if I plan on not driving for a few days. FWIW

 

I have use the Deltran unit on every vehicle I own for a number of years. Many of the battery tenders including the Deltran use internal current sensing and timing circuits. The following description is for the Deltran, the other brands may differ in details. The tender will charge the battery at around 14.5 Volts until the battery is charged enough that the current drops below 100 mA or after a period of 6 hours has elapsed, whatever comes first. After that the tender goes into a float mode where it maintains its output at 13.2 Volts. What happens if the battery is discharged to the point that it takes more than 6 hours for the current to drop down or there is some load in the vehicle drawing more than 100 mA? The voltage drops down and it will take all weekend or more to fully charge the battery. You can save time by unplugging it from the wall for a few seconds then plugging it back in to reset the timer.

 

Excellent point and it works.

I have done that as well.

Great explanation of the tender's function.

 

Wow, I wasn't aware that I should be doing this. If I only drive my car every 2-3 days should I be charging the battery?

 

I use my trickle charger only in the winter months here in the north east. I had no problems thus far with all of my P-cars doing it this way.

 

Just to be clear (I just bought the Porsche OEM cigarette lighter trickle charger), you leave it plugged in for weeks/months at a time and it's totally fine on it's own, knows when to charge and when to stop etc?

Thanks!!

 

I have the oem trickle charger. Love it so far.

 

Yes that is correct. Very self sustaining unit.

 

Correct.

You can never overcharge a battery with a tender.

The unit is quite intuitive.

 

Hate to unearth this old thread, but given the fact that I had to replace the battery this last go around, want to make sure I'm doing this right. I have the duracell multi-stage charger referred to earlier (http://www.duracellpower.com/battery-chargers/battery-chargers/15-amp-battery-charger.aspx) and I put the clamps on and set it to 2AMPS. Throughout the entire manual, it says "unplug after charging" but since I'm not driving my 997S at all these days, I just want to trickle charge the car. So my questions are:

1. If I leave the clamps on, set it to 2AMPs and leave it plugged in for month(s), will the battery be ok?
2. The hood light stays on because i can't close the hood all the way. Sometimes it goes off after a while, but should I take the bulb out?

I know the easy solution would be to get one of those OEM cigarette trickle chargers, but I've already dumped money into this thing and there's no reason it shouldn't work. Just curious if anyone has had an experience with these type of battery charger/conditioners with trickle charge functionality.....and what people have done to deal with the big clamps and the inability to close the hood all the way to shut off the light....

Thanks in advance! Happy Holidays!

 

You do not want a charger.

You want a battery tender.

Look at Deltran or Interstate.

Do not leave a charger connected to your battery.